IRNA chairman calls growth 'desirable,' 'inevitable'
The following letter by Executive Director Brian Carman was printed in the Press Journal May 11, 2009. Some people are only now beginning to listen to the IRNA's warnings about unmanaged growth. Brian addresses this in the following letter:
Monday, May 11, 2009
Recent reports of huge growth plans in Fellsmere and Osceola County (the proposed new town of "Destiny) may have come as a shock to some, but the Indian River Neighborhood Association has been warning about the population growth monster for years.
Who will be benefit from this massive growth? My guess is that it will be the out-of-state developers who plan to convert this part of Florida into another South Florida sprawl.
That has been tried before and we all know how that worked out. Left unchecked, this growth plan will leave us in an overcrowded and water-starved state.
This has to stop somewhere and sometime. Why not stop uncontrolled growth now?
The IRNA has no profit motive, is non-partisan and beholden to no one. Chairman John Higgs has stated that "growth is both desirable and inevitable." He has publicly stated that a sustainable economy cannot be based on building more residences.
Proper growth should be focused on attracting clean industries and institutions that have good paying jobs; residential construction alone will only perpetuate and aggravate our current economic problems.
The IRNA is working to be part of the solution by cooperating with those who are trying to bring good paying jobs to our county.
The growth we speak of should be planned and managed with the interests of the public in mind, not the short-term profits of a few large developers and land owners.
Russ Lemmon asked in a recent column "Where do we sign up, IRNA?" The answer is found at www.indianriverna.com, or 794-4762.
Brian Carman
Executive Director, Indian River Neighborhood Association
Vero Beach
